UK, Russia agree to return diplomats - report

Moscow and London have reached an agreement to return some staff to their respective embassies after they expelled dozens of diplomats early this year, TASS news agency reports, citing the Russian envoy to the UK.

The British Foreign Office and the Russian Foreign Ministry were not immediately available for comment.

"We have reached a general agreement that we will start to restore diplomatic staff in Moscow and in London some time in January," TASS quoted Russia's ambassador to London Alexander Yakovenko as saying in a televised interview on Friday.

"I am not sure that this would happen to all employees but at least half the staff would be in place," he said.

The United Kingdom expelled 23 Russian diplomats over accusations the Kremlin was behind a nerve toxin attack in March on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury.

Russia, which denies any involvement in the poisoning, sent home the same number of British embassy workers in retaliation.